Fralic: Beneath the Olympic negativity and nonsense are the stories

And so it has come to this, this oozing blister of snippy assumption propelled by an Internet universe in which manners now lie abandoned at the side of the etiquette highway, in which bitchy uninformed criticism trumps intelligent introspection, in which failure is celebrated more than success, in which social media has officially become the canker sore on the lip of life.

Because, if you are following the 2012 Olympics now underway in London with any interest at all, as some of us have been doing for decades, you will have noticed that the news coming out of the Games has become — in far too many cases — less about triumph than about who’s winning the gold medal for meanest spirit in cyberspace.

We are a week into the 17 days of the 302 events in 24 sports that define this 30th Summer Olympiad, a brief moment in time when 204 countries put aside their differences and focus on the purity of athletic pursuit in an international sack race meant to be brimming with good will and sportsmanship.

Except that so much of what is coming out of London are stories like these:

Bloated budgets. Cranky tourists and a hidden flame. Security snafus. The audacity of the NBC peacock daring to tape-delay its coverage. Worst games ever. Canada’s bronze medal haul translating to an argument for Quebec sovereignty. The I Believe ear worm. Who’s too fat, who’s too ripped, who designed that awful London font, who’s too tweety, who’s getting booted for pure stupidity and who’s wearing a bikini that is so teeny you can tell what she had for lunch.

It’s one big cacophony of crap, to put it mildly, so much flotsam and jetsam from the chattering classes and nattering nabobs that the din of discontent and snarkiness are drowning out the hum of sportsmanship, the compelling sheen of grit and guts and glory, of success and failure, that used to make the Olympic Games worth watching.

The second that muscly, 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen tapped the wall of the Olympic pool in the women’s 400-metre individual medley, taking gold in an astonishing world-record and personal best time on her last lap (faster than, gasp, U.S. swim champ Ryan Lochte in the same event), the ghost of steroid scandals past overtook any semblance of fair commentary: the bloggers, tweeters, broadcasters and assorted self-appointed experts instantly accused her of doping, their protests fading fast when her post-race tests proved otherwise.

Getting lost in all this New Age, shoot-from-the-hip coverage is what the Olympics are really about.

The stories. And not just the well-told tales of phenoms like Michael Phelps and our own Clara Hughes, though their athletic feats are a marvel, but the small stories where anonymity suddenly gives way to podium stardom.

Stories like that of Brent Hayden of Mission, who regrouped for 2012 after a disappointing outing in Beijing in 2008, and who took home a bronze medal this week in the 100-metre freestyle, which The Sun’s Cam Cole so perfectly described as the “ballsiest” last Olympic race of Hayden’s 28-year-old life.

If you hadn’t heard of Hayden before — and chances are you hadn’t — you certainly know who he is now. You know his backstory, his struggles to find his game, his dedicated coach of 11 years, Tom Johnson. You know, too, that Hayden’s Olympic triumph — and yes, a bronze is a triumph and not a loss like many naysayers suggest — defines what it means to never give up.

When Hayden pulled himself out of the pool on Wednesday night, joy jumping off his tattooed skin, and leaned over and kissed his No. 7 starting block, the touching moment found you holding out faint hope that perhaps the nonsense has settled down, and that the Olympics have not completely fallen victim to the pervasive culture of trashing-by-social-media that has so redefined the public discourse of late.

And so you wait. For the next great tale of Olympic spirit to emerge from the thicket of tripe, perhaps the wonder of 2008 Olympic silver medallist Ian Millar of Nova Scotia, the consummate equestrian and show jumper, who at the age of 65 is in London this week representing Canada for the 10th time at the Olympics, more than any other competitor in the history of the Games.

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